...Especially when you have to design them. You start the game with "maybe" some default ships and then spend the rest of your time designing them! No fun there...KISS rules are now in effect...

I'll start by saying again that I certainly both understand and appreciate the need to balance things for the sake of game play/fun/entertainment and certainly KISS rules play a part of that.

But I totally disagree in the respect that designing ships is no fun. While combat is only 1 of the big 4 "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate" - to me the other three only prop up my ability with technology and resources to better blow things up with. Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus - and I am biased towards the one that packs heat.

Ship design was always one of my most favorite aspects of SE4 and most certainly of SE5 - what I did find to be lacking in fun area was the management of both ships and ships designs (upgrades) which could use some KISS treatment.

Speaking only in the sense of general game play ideas and pipe dream wants I would like to see capital ships take a much larger significance (firing arcs being a portion of that) and be far fewer in number then normally portrayed in most games - making both ship design and smaller ships more critical to game play.

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"It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." Robert E. Lee

Building your ships IS fun. BUT when you have firing arcs involved it becomes a greater strain on those players who don't care for such detail. The game has to appeal to the masses ($$$) and with that in mind, like all other things for general use they get dumbed down. The game will not sell on firing arcs or not. It will sell on playability for all level players. Modability will keep it from becoming boring and add new challanges.

We are experimenting with firing arcs, and we have a simple way of implementing them. They will be part of the component modification system, similar to the mounts in SE4 and SE5, or the weapon modifications in MoO2.

I was under the impression that this game will have a 2D style of battle system.

It does make sense to makes things more simplistic in the interests of maintaining acheivable game dynamics without resorting to a more complicated 3D style gameplay.

I urge the makers to look at "Gratuitous Space Battles" to see a balance of ship customisation on a 2D plane versus something more elaborate like Sins of a Solar Empire. I for one have no qualms about embracing either style. I hope that in the same vein as GSB it takes a playful approach to working within the confines of unique interplanetary battlefield conditions, like nebulas, asteroid belts playing some role in affecting battle dynamics. This should keep things interesting, and provoke gamers to utilise the space environments to wage a battle and outweigh which ship types to bring into the fray against their opponent. Should make for interesting choices in battle tactics and skill rather than maintaining a might in numbers tank rush that has a propensity in happening most times.

....I urge the makers to look at "Gratuitous Space Battles" to see a balance of ship customisation on a 2D plane versus something more elaborate like Sins of a Solar Empire... Should make for interesting choices in battle tactics and skill rather than maintaining a might in numbers tank rush that has a propensity in happening most times.

GSB didn't really excite me but I thought the overall concept certainly has some merits that can be utilized in a turn based execution. I agree that having a legion of ships and just throwing them at the enemy is a non-starter. I'd really like to see fewer ships (certainly fewer capital ships) and a greater emphasis placed on crew experience (minor bonuses) or even a very minor RPG aspect for ship captains (again capital ships) maybe something similar to Advance Wars.

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"It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." Robert E. Lee

Heh, if we have heroes with battlefield-wide or localized effects like the CO's in Advance Wars (I liked how in Days of Ruin the CO actually had a location on a unit and only affected nearby units ), we really ought to have a captain by the name of Kwok who's a master of programming AI-controlled drone units, and thus provides a bonus to seeking missile weapons!

Actually, perhaps even better than MOO2 style "mercenary" heroes, would be if heroes appeared like the "Great People" in Civ4 based on points earned by an empire, but then the heroes could also be renamed by the player or at least have names selected from a list based on the empire that spawned them and their role!

So if you're using a Klingon shipset, your military heroes might get names like Kahless and Kor, but if you're playing as, oh, I dunno, the Polish Revivalist Dominion (hehe, anyone get the reference?) you might get heroes like Walesa (a political leader) and Wojtila (a religious leader) Of course the Klingons would have political and religious leaders, and the Poles would have military leaders - I just can't think of any names at the moment :P